Originally Posted by Or'ab Ibo:I wouldn't suggest that Star Trek Online's artists ought to be reaching for perfect photorealism. What I'm saying is that most of Star Trek (and a major percentage of the one in-game image we've now been shown) was about semi-realistic artistic effects. In the early days it was matte paintings and composite shots and rubber suits; by DS9 it was mostly CG and latex appliances; but either way the goal was a kind of otherworldly semi-realism.
The more you try to reach realistic shading and photorealistic textures. The more you get into "That don't look quite right" or the "uncanny" effect. They look darned close to real! but something in the animation, style, or lighting will break the immersion for the player.
I think this Interactions image mostly achieves that... except for the alien portrait. That style is so different from everything else in the image (and, as noted above, from semi-realistic Star Trek) that it just sucker-punches my imagination -- I can't get past the WoWiness of it.
I thought the fake scan lines in the portrait window were a nice touch, though....
